State Department of Institutions v. Industrial Accident Commission

WHITE, J.

By this proceeding petitioner seeks to have annulled an award of the Industrial Accident Commission granting to respondent Gwen Conner compensation for injuries sustained by her while she was in the employ of petitioner as an attendant at the State Hospital at Camarillo.

The facts are not in dispute. Respondent Mrs. Conner lived twenty miles away from the hospital where she was employed. She drove to and from work in her automobile, in which she also transported a co-employee, who paid her 25^ a day for this accommodation. On the day of the injury Mrs. Cornier, having completed her work for the day at 11 p. m., left the building in which she was employed, entered her car which was parked in a parking lot provided on the premises, and drove to the front entrance of the hospital building, where she waited for her passenger. After a ten-minute wait, Mrs. Conner left her ear and went up the main steps of the building to ascertain why her passenger had not appeared. On the steps she fell and broke her arm.

It is urged that the undisputed facts show that the injury did not arise out of and in the course of the employment, and therefore is not compensable under section 3600 of the Labor Code. This contention is sound. At the time of her injury, respondent Mrs. Conner not only was off duty, but was engaged upon a purely personal errand, of no direct or indirect benefit to her employer. Respondents rely in part upon authorities which hold that while an act may be in part personal to the employee, the personal element does not necessarily make it entirely foreign to the employment. An examination of such authorities discloses, however, that they lend little, if any, support to respondents’ view of the present case. The conclusion to be derived from the decisions of this and other jurisdictions is well expressed in the opinion

[441]

in

Employers’ etc. Corp.

v.

Industrial Acc. Comm.,

37 Cal. App. (2d) 567, 573 [99 Pac. (2d) 1089], as follows:

“Some of the cases denying liability for injuries received while performing personal acts are based on the doctrine of strict construction of compensation acts. That doctrine has never been adopted in this state. Many of the apparently conflicting decisions are not in fact conflicting when analyzed.